Founding Medicinal Chemist: Build Breakthrough Molecules

Founding Medicinal Chemist (Small Molecules) $10k referral bonus for successful hires Half equity, half cash. $140,000–$220,000 per year This is a full-time role in San Francisco. It’s Tuesday, 8:47 AM. You walk into the lab with 3 priorities and 1 new idea you have not killed yet. The overnight assay data is in. One analog series improved potency 6-fold, but metabolic stability got worse. Another series went nowhere. A third has ugly solubility but a profile that is interesting enough that you do not want to throw it away. By 9:15, you are already sketching the next round. You are not guessing randomly. You are making real medicinal chemistry decisions: what to keep, what to delete, what to simplify, what to push harder. At 11 AM, biology pings you. One compound is doing something weird in the functional assay. Maybe artifact. Maybe not. You sit down together, look at the structure, the controls, the readout, and the liabilities. You decide which 4 compounds are worth making next and which 12 are not. Next, you are in the hood. Real chemistry. Multi-step synthesis, route adaptation, purification, QC. You are not handing off thinking to someone else. You are designing molecules that matter, then making them. By late afternoon, analytical data is back on the first 2 compounds. Clean enough. Promising enough. You push them forward. At dinner, the team is arguing about whether the series is actually good or just early-stage noise. You think there is something real there. Not because you are optimistic. Because you have taste. After dinner, you get back to work because the data looks so promising. The Role We have seen early positive data on our therapeutics. This makes us excited to move them toward the clinic soon: testing them in human patients by mid next-year. Start-ups are unique. Roles are not ossified or constrained like they are in large companies. You will likely learn a new job every few months. Keep that in mind when reading this rough outline of what working together could look like. As we spin out multiple deep research projects, if you want to lead your own chemistry program, we are open to that. Weird ideas are welcome. More concretely, you will: Design novel small molecules against real biological hypotheses Drive design-make-test-analyze loops with urgency and judgment Plan and execute multi-step organic syntheses independently Interpret SAR across potency, selectivity, stability, permeability, and other drug-like properties Work closely with biology to decide what gets made and why Build new compound series, not just follow instructions on old ones Troubleshoot chemistry fast when routes fail, compounds behave strangely, or data conflicts Help build our medicinal chemistry capability from scratch What you’ll get You will be part of our mission to cure sleep and help us set a new world record from start to operations to first dose in humans. Your name will be among the first few who made it possible. You will help make history. Access to world-class advisors at MIT and Harvard Meaningful contributions that move real drug candidates toward the clinic at lightspeed A front-row seat in building a serious therapeutics company from the beginning High ownership and unusually direct scientific influence You To achieve our goals, Capable needs exceptional people. You are hungry to work on hard technical problems. You have learned something difficult fast before, and can prove it. You figure things out without waiting for instructions. You are here to get sharper, and mistakes do not derail you. You might be a fit if: You have deep experience in medicinal chemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, or small-molecule drug discovery You have strong taste in molecule design, not just synthesis execution You can independently plan and run multi-step syntheses You understand SAR and can reason clearly from imperfect early data You have built or advanced real compound series before You have a track record of unusually high output You have shipped hard technical work under tight timelines You do not need much external structure to stay productive You have evidence of sustained intensity, not just brief enthusiasm You have a strong publication record, patent record, or meaningful program contributions You have won a competitive fellowship, scholarship, research award, or have another clear signal of unusual ability You built something difficult in the lab that was not handed to you You picked up hard technical skills fast Your advisor or manager would say you are in the top 1% of people they trained or managed, though this is not an exclusion criterion You are the person teams rely on when experiments need to be designed, executed, and interpreted well This role suits outstanding medicinal chemists, synthetic chemists who want to move into drug discovery, early-career industry scientists, or unusually strong PhDs and postdocs who want to build aggressively. Working together $140,000–$220,000 per year , with room for upside and promotions as the company grows. Generous equity on a vesting schedule. Healthcare. Your Wellness budget: $500+ per month to spend on training, supplements, medication, and everything you need to become your best self. How we work: Small team, high trust, high agency High responsibility We prefer written clarity over meetings We move fast by parallelizing, being decisive, and keeping quality systems lightweight but real We care about speed, safety, and quality, not paperwork theater If you find a better way, you can change the system All of this is open to conversation. We will work with you to make it work. You will work alongside the founding team, small, lean, moving fast.

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